Happy Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day to all the wonderful moms out there! Why not do a “Feeling Good” painting for this special day! So I did. It’s a small little painting with a BIG message. Feel good about mom today and every day.

The Northern Lights

Northern Lights have always facinated me. So, why not do a painting of it? And, for added measure, I through a snowy owl in the mix. This is just one reason I love to paint. You can create anything your imagination desires. I’ve done paintings with owls before, but this is my first snowy owl. The backdrop is somewhere in Norway. I’ve never been there, but would like to see the Northern lights in person some day. Just another thing to add to my bucket list 🙂 This was done on three pine board planks glued together. For those of you who have never picked up an artist paint brush, give it a try. You might surprise yourself.

Painting For Grace

We have a family friend. Her name is Grace. She is only in her early thirties and she was recently diagnosed with Stage 4 Sarcoma cancer. As of this writing she has started intensive chemo therapy.

Grace is a talented nurse and caregiver, a devoted and loving wife, and an amazing soul. With the support of her amazing network of friends and family, she is taking on the fight to beat it. Grace is the definition of a strong woman, and we are here to help her focus healing by taking on some of the financial burden through donations and t-shirt purchases. Anyone who wishes to contribute can go to:

https://www.bonfire.com/fightwithgrace/ 

NOTE: This fund raiser has been extended to 20 Sep 2017. See results so far from link above.

I wanted to do a painting for her as well. She likes owls, and earthy colors with yellow being her favorite color. So, I put my thinking cap on and came up with this painting. It’s painted on 3 pine board planks.

“Jesus Takes What is Broken and Makes It Beautiful…Its Called Grace”.

Daily Scrolls Quote.

“Fire Fall” An Amazing Illusion

During some years, for about two weeks in mid to late February, the setting sun creates a mesmerizing deep orange glow phenomenon when it strikes Horsetail Fall. This is a small waterfall that flows over the eastern edge of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. El Capitan is a majestic enormous rock face, and a favorite of rock climbers. The fierce orange glow of the fall is caused by just the right conditions like water flows, clouds and temperature. The natural effect gives the illusion that intense bright orange lava is cascading off the cliff of El Capitan. Timing is everything when the angle of the setting sun causes the light to hit the waterfall just right.

When I lived in California for a total of nine years my family and I frequented Yosemite as much as we could. In fact, we camped there for an entire week on one occasion. I can understand why John Muir spent almost entire life there. In my opinion, its one of my top places to see on the entire planet.

I painted this on two small cedar planks. I added a snowy owl because it just felt right. I hope you enjoy the painting, and of course I always look for feedback. Good, Bad and Ugly.

The Barn

 

I call this painting “Life…There Is Light After The Darkness”.

This painting is one of my first, and its located on my main page of Word Press. I wanted  to add it over here on my Blog side of Word Press along with my other paintings. Its a fairly large painting on six cedar wood planks measuring 20 inches wide by 30 inches long.

The left side of the painting represents the turmoil and storms we have as we go through our life’s journey. The right side of the painting represents the happiness, love and peace throughout ones life. It gives hope and light after you have been struck down in the darkness. The Barn is the focal point. To me it represents humans. No matter what is thrown at you to tear you down, to break you with grief, pain and sadness the human condition can win out. The barn will not be crushed in the aftermath of immense destruction, and  you CAN shine on and stand tall through it all with hope, happiness, freedom, love and a sense of calm, peace and inner strength.

Daily Prompt: Mystical – Its A Hoot

via Daily Prompt: Mystical

I know this appears as a shameless plug for my owl painting, but I’m just responding to today’s daily word prompt word “MYSTICAL”. I did a painting for my wife because she loves owls among many other creatures. Because of her, I became more aware of them. At times they do have a ghostly / mystically look about them. The way they swivel their heads and just sit and observe their surroundings.

Their eye sight is unbelievable (especially at night). Also, did you know that the Great Horned Owl and the Hoot Owl are the only two species of owl that emit the hooting sound. Even their hoots are a bit mystical at times to me. Actually, I have two paintings depicting the owl. Here they are:

https://woodcanvasartist.wordpress.com/2016/11/12/owl-mountain/

and…

https://woodcanvasartist.wordpress.com/ (he is flying away from chaos of life on the right-hand side of the painting).

Owl Mountain

I call this painting Owl Mountain. My wife loves owls, and we both love nature. I wanted to paint a painting dedicated to owls for her. I didn’t want to just paint a single owl. I wanted this painting to exploit owls in some kind of new way. At first, I couldn’t figure out how to do that. I was having painter’s block. I wanted to be outside the box on this one.

Then one day, out of nowhere it had hit me. We recently took a trip to Colorado, and the Rocky Mountains and Pikes Peak were still fresh in my mind. This is how I came up with Owl Mountain. I wanted to combine a mountain range with some owls. So, I started to formulate a plan for the scene in my head. All kinds of thoughts started to pour in. This painting is a culmination of those ideas. These are not the Rocky Mountains. They are made from my thoughts only. A fictitious place dedicated to owls.

The owls are actually part of the mountains, like the wood I paint on is part of the art. When you think of it, this isn’t to odd. Presidents are carved into Mount Rushmore, so to me (albeit weird), this wasn’t to out of the ordinary. This mountain pays tribute to owls in a grand and unusual way. Frankly, if there was such a place…I would like to visit. All said and done, I accomplished what I set out to do I think. My wife thinks so as well, and she really loves this painting. Satisfied. I can now move on to my next painting quest.

Family

This is what started it all. My wife knows how much I love to woodwork, and she knew I painted, but it had been a long time since I picked up an art brush. In our early years of marriage, I did quite a lot of water color paintings. Until this year,  it has been over 30 years or so since I painted regularly. With the wood canvas shown above, those are not cedar planks that you will see in the rest of the paintings I have done. They are mix of thick pine boards I glued together. My wife had seen something similar like what you see here on Pinterest, and she asked me to make one like it for her. It peaked my interest because it was a wood project. At the time I was more interested in making the canvas out of wood than painting. So without hesitation I said sure; never realizing that it has now led me as far as this in creating a blog to showcase my work. Not my intention at all at the time. Just one thing led to another and now here I am writing about it.

When I made the piece above I decided to go with acrylic paint. I never really messed around with acrylic in my twenties. I mainly used the water color medium. But since I was painting on wood, I needed a little more of a meaty paint. Now I am hooked on acrylic. I never have done oil painting, but I think acrylic is just such a great consistency between water color and oil. I can make it as thick and thin as I want by mixing it with water or not. This medium just feels right for what I want to accomplish when painting on wood. One day I will give oil painting a shot, but for now I am enjoying acrylic to much. After doing this project, I knew I had to do more. I was bitten once again by the creative bug. The combination of loving acrylic paint and wood working was all to much. Now, I think I need an intervention.

Some of my paintings, I have burned the words into the canvas. The words above are burned in:

“Family  like branches on a tree…we may grow in different directions…yet our roots remain as one”  unknown author.